Partners Create 'Worst Survey in the World'

In the US, new partners Alchemer and Good Gamer Group (GGG) are boosting response rates from the latter's gaming community by replacing traditional survey questions with playable mini-games. The new approach uses a 'deliberately frustrating' gamified experience to make its point about respondent fatigue.

Founded in 2006 as SurveyGizmo, Alchemer is a KKR portfolio company and provides survey, workflow, audience, communication and analysis tools, integrated into common business systems across the enterprise. Since 2024 it has also offered full service research.

Its partner GGG is a gaming market research community developed by Interpret. The community is using Alchemer's technology to tackle survey fatigue, and created the 'worst' survey to demonstrate 'how interactive games can replace traditional survey questions to deliver better engagement and boost response rates. The survey sees familiar question formats converted into playable experiences, including a Flappy Bird-inspired yes-or-no question, a claw machine for multiple-choice selections, a basketball free throw for ratings and a carnival water-gun game for screening questions.

The companies say it's worked. Studies involving from 500 to more than 1,000 respondents have been 'fielded and completed in a single day,' with up to 70% of responses received in the first hour, fewer than 10% of participants disqualified and Alchemer's software 'seamlessly integrated' into GGG's customer relationship management system to eliminate repetitive demographic questions and make full use of its incentive platform, Tremendous.

Ryan Tamminga, Chief Customer Officer at Alchemer, says GGG is 'a great example of what happens when companies rethink how they engage with their audiences,' adding: 'Their gamified survey takes that innovation a step further, showing how Alchemer's AI-powered solutions give organizations the flexibility to challenge conventional approaches and make customer feedback a better experience for everyone.'

GGG President Jesse Divnich comments: 'What started as a fun challenge within the development team to rethink what a survey could be revealed something much bigger. Survey fatigue is a problem across industries, and we saw an opportunity to change that. By making surveys more engaging, we can increase participation, reduce drop-offs and deliver better insights.'

Those interested in the practical insights gleaned from the exercise can attend an Alchemer webinar, read a case study and experience the 'Worst Survey' themselves, complete with Star Wars intro, here.

Alchemer is online at www.alchemer.com .